In European Union member states, consumers aren’t supposed to be charged differently for products or services depending on where they live. Yet visitors to the happiest place accessible by Paris commuter rail, Disneyland Paris, have complained to the European Commission that the resort charges people differently according to where they’re from. [More]

The first film in the live-action Disney franchise High School Musical was released in 2006. Like all Disney properties, it came with a significant amount of licensed merchandise, since that’s how Disney keeps Mickey Mouse in cheddar. So this movie-branded MP3/WMA player found on a shelf at Walmart wouldn’t really have attracted our attention…if it were still 2007. [More]

Another day, another Facebook scam that has suckered more than 25,000 people in just a matter of hours — in spite of the fact that nothing about this supposed giveaway indicates that it’s legitimate. [More]

You can rest easy the next time you go to Disney World, knowing that you won’t get whapped in the face by an errant selfie stick: Under a new policy, the phone extension sticks are banned from Disney World’s theme parks. Not just on rides, but nowhere within the borders of the Magic Kingdom. And by that I mean, nowhere in any of the parks. [More]

Three performers fired from Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Orlando last June after they refused to wear costumes dubbed “contaminated” by other sweaty garments will be given their old jobs back and get back pay. [More]

While almost every important movie has long been made available as a digital download by now, the six films in the Star Wars saga have not (legally) been obtainable this way. But that will finally change starting Friday when all of the movies will be released online at the same time. [More]

So you think you love Disney, huh? Do you love it enough to fly to three different Disney theme parks in one day just to snap a celebratory anniversary photo? Didn’t think so, but one couple from San Diego managed to pull it off in the name of love on Valentine’s Day. [More]

While Disney-owned Marvel Studios has Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and The Avengers to play with, one marquee Marvel character, Spider-Man, is controlled by Sony, which hasn’t been eager to share its lucrative toy with others. But Sony is apparently in a more generous mood after seeing a string of Marvel movies make boffo box-office returns and is willing to let their web-slinging superhero play with his pals. [More]

This morning, Dish’s Sling TV streaming service ended its invite-only period and opened the floodgates to anyone who wants to sign up for $20/month access. We’ve been messing around with Sling for a few days and have come across some issues you should take into account before deciding to sign up. [More]

With its involvement in Dish’s Sling TV service, Disney has shown that it’s willing to experiment with making its high-value cable programming available to consumers who don’t want traditional cable TV. So why not look into that same approach for its marquee movie titles? [More]

A Disney cruise is supposed to be fun for people of all ages, but one family from Florida is upset because family vacations apparently have an age limit. Disney Cruise Lines recently changed their lower age limit for passengers, banning babies under 6 months of age when they had previously allowed infants 12 weeks and older on board. The policy was suddenly enforced when the 4-month old visited the ship’s doctor. [More]

More than four years after cable sports powerhouse ESPN launched its WatchESPN streaming service, DirecTV remains the only major pay-TV provider whose subscribers are unable to access it. But thanks to a new deal between the satellite company and ESPN’s parent company Disney, DirecTV customers will finally be able to get more value out of the most expensive channel on basic cable. [More]

The FCC is currently mulling over whether to give its stamp of approval to two huge mergers — Comcast/Time Warner Cable and AT&T/DirecTV — and is intending to make information available to third parties about the deals that that these pay-TV giants make with broadcasters. But even though you and every other cable subscriber wants to know exactly how much Comcast pays for access to channels like ESPN, MTV, and the major networks, the broadcasters want that info kept under lock and key — and they’ve asked the court to stop it from possibly going public. [More]

As we shared before Halloween, this year some of the most popular costumes for girls (and a few boys) were the lead characters from the animated Disney movie “Frozen.” While the movie came out last winter, Disney announced that it remains popular, and they’re going to be putting even more “Frozen” merchandise, including costumes, on the shelves for the holiday season. [More]

The folks at Disney have patented a search engine that ranks and filters out results based on “authenticity” metrics, allowing it to exclude “undesirable” results, which it describes only as “results referencing piracy websites, child pornography websites, and/or the like,” lumping in people trying to watch Finding Nemo for free with dangerous sexual predators. [More]

If the idea of hot air balloon creatures causes you to tremble — all those huge, leering smiles floating above like some kind of slow-moving demons just biding their creepy time — you might not want to think about puppets gamboling around in the sky controlled by drones. That’s exactly the future Disney is envisioning with three drone-related patents it’s working on. [More]